Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Kyiv, Ukraine – When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Denys Kostev was 18 and living in an orphanage in Kherson. Appalled by the war, he used to film social media videos decrying the invading Russian forces.But he was soon forcibly transferred to occupied Crimea, and his rhetoric suddenly went in the other direction.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listNow in Kyiv four years later, Kostev told Al Jazeera he played the role of a poster child for wartime Russia just to survive.Sprightly, eloquent and photogenic, he used to attend a theatre club at his orphanage in the southern…

Kriti Legend at Kulevi with BSP’s first shipment of Libyan crude oil, 30 August 2026. / via Black Sea Petroleum Europe’s need for diverse fuel supplies Europe continues to import fuels used in transport and industry. According to Eurostat, EU net imports in 2024 amounted to 15.7 million tonnes of oil equivalent for gasoil and diesel and 11 million for jet fuel. Both are included in the Kulevi Oil Refinery’s expansion plans. For Kulevi, the opportunity is to supply EU markets alongside Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, drawing on non-Russian crude and the Black Sea’s shipping connections. The European Commission’s assessment…

Talks to break the deadlock over the controversial Drumcree parade will continue with the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, on Wednesday as nationalist protesters declare the prospect of mediation with unionists “dead in the water”.The nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition has at the same time launched a fresh legal challenge to reimpose the almost 30-year ban on the Orange Order marching down their road, mounting fresh arguments that the Parades Commission has “materially misdirected itself”.Breandán Mac Cionnaith, the leader of the group, said his goal was “no parade, just no parade, that is what our community wants, that’s what nearly…

Apple began rolling out Apple Pay in India on Tuesday, as TechCrunch was first to report. Its first banking partner is Axis Bank, the country’s third-largest private-sector lender. The move brings the company’s payments service to the world’s most populous country after years of delays in a market dominated by the state-backed United Payments Interface (UPI). The initial rollout is limited. Apple Pay supports eligible Axis Bank cards on Visa and Mastercard, but not India’s homegrown RuPay network. Acceptance will also be restricted to merchants and payment terminals that have been enabled for the service. Apple said the service would…

The FBI on Tuesday called on ShinyHunters group members to come forward in the wake of the alleged leader’s arrest. The suspected leader, Pepijn van der Stap, of Amsterdam, was arrested on September 15 in the Netherlands while on probation after serving three of the four-year prison term he was sentenced to in 2023 over hacking and extortion activities. The Dutch police on Tuesday said the 24-year-old man is suspected of “playing a role within the hacking group ShinyHunters” and of planning two murders. “After his arrest on September 15, a lot of information was found on his laptop, including…

In brief Democratic staff on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations analyzed 846 sanctioned wallets tied to Iran and its proxies. They found 84% transacted exclusively, or nearly exclusively, in Tether’s USDT. Tether published a statement the same day citing $550 million of Iran-linked freezes this year, without addressing the report. Of 846 cryptocurrency wallets sanctioned or targeted for seizure over links to Iran and its regional proxies, 84% transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, according to a report released by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).The report, titled “Tethered to Terrorism,” comes from Democratic staff on the Senate…

NSTGRO Homepage Omar AlyousefUniversity Of MemphisPolycatenated Architected Materials (PAM) for Origami-Inspired Space Docking Ports Cade ArmstrongUniversity Of Texas at AustinIntelligent Multi-Agent Constellations for Cooperative Cislunar Operations Laurel BarnettHarvard UniversityPhotonic SNSPD Readout and Feed Forward System for Improved Optical Communication Capabilities Katie BarcakWilliam Marsh Rice UniversityCompact magnetic heat switch for thermal management of long duration low power exploration missions Austin BodinUniversity Of Colorado, BoulderRapid Robust Trajectory Design via Motion Funnels in Multi-Body Systems William BodnarNorth Carolina State UniversityNear-field Thermophotovoltaics for Extraterrestrial Surface Power Generation Diana BolanosUniversity of California, BerkeleyOrigami-inspired lattice architectures for robotic assembly and reconfiguration of modular space structures Annalise…

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. On April 9, a farmer named Rupalal heard noises in a well at his field in Dhawadi village in the state of Rajasthan in India. He looked down and saw a leopard 21 meters (70 feet) below. A Rajasthan Forest Department team arrived at the scene and lowered a cage into the well, but the leopard would not enter. So Pratap Singh Chundawat, a ranger, descended into the shaft by rope. He tranquilized the animal with a dart gun, and the…

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and Kenya’s President William Ruto are set to break ground on a $16bn (£12bn) oil refinery in Lamu, on Kenya’s northern coast.Upon completion, the refinery is expected to process 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day, making it East Africa’s largest industrial project by capacity. Ahead of the launch, some local residents took to the streets to demand more compensation for land used for the refinery.Speaking to the BBC, Dangote dismissed the protests as games played by local marketers and international players, insisting the refinery would go ahead and would be ready by 2030 as planned.The…

Sixteen English councils spent more than 80% of their core funding on adult and children’s social care last year, highlighting the growing financial pressure on other local services.Guardian analysis of government figures found that councils responsible for social care spent a net £42.8bn on adult and children’s services in 2025-26, equivalent to a record 71.9% of their combined core spending. Adult social care took 44.5% and children’s services accounted for 27.4%. In 2017-18, care costs made up 62.4% of councils’ core spending.The overspending, which is driven by an ageing population with increasingly complex care needs, rising inflationary pressures and growing…